


Better Watch Out [Better Not Cry]

by allyoops



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Barely Legal, Degrading Praise, F/M, Genre-savvy victim, Groping Escalates to Rape, Non-Consensual Touching, Not that it will help her much, Object Insertion, Victim Forced to Enjoy, Victim's Enjoyment Mocked by Rapist, by literal minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:35:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27726910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyoops/pseuds/allyoops
Summary: After spending two hours at the mall on Christmas Eve, watching him kick every kind of terrorist ass, Holly has to admit that her dad is actually kind of awesome.His nemesis, however, is decidedly not. And now he has his sights set on Holly . . .
Relationships: Christmas action movie villain/Teen daughter of Christmas action movie hero
Comments: 8
Kudos: 60
Collections: Naughty List 2020





	Better Watch Out [Better Not Cry]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nonnymouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonnymouse/gifts).



Holly didn’t want to take the stairs. The gun was so heavy and she wasn’t used to holding it and also she was pretty sure there was at least one dead body on the stairs. With as many dead bodies as she had seen over the past two hours, Holly was positive she did not want to see another.

So she waited for the elevator instead.

Waited for it with a gun in her hand, shivering in the soft, white cropped sweater Dad had been so uncomfortable to see her in when he picked her up from her volunteer shift at Toys for Tots. Which was _so_ unfair. Never mind that it bared just the right amount of tummy when she lifted her arms, and forget that her ass looked _fantastic_ in these jeans; he couldn’t appreciate the reasons she liked the outfit because obviously he was her Dad and seeing her talking to a boy while she waited for him to pick her up had made him go all _Dad_ on her and bluster ineffectively for the whole drive here.

Naturally, she had rolled her eyes and sassed him back. She pointed out _he_ was the one who forgot a Christmas gift for Mom, and insisted it was ridiculous to expect Mom to believe his cover story that he was taking Holly to see Santa. She was so beyond that. Today was her birthday; she was _eighteen_! Dad had fired back that she was _not_ eighteen yet, she was seventeen and would remain so until eleven fifty-nine tonight on Christmas Eve, and he knew that for a fact because he was her dad and he had been there the very minute she was born.

She had rolled her eyes, of course, and huffed herself into sullen silence, but she knew the entire exchange meant, somehow, that they were friends all the same; that they loved each other even if their mutual understanding was maybe less than perfect now that she was no longer a little girl. She had even shrugged into a cozy green jacket just to make him happy. But she was cold now because she had taken off that jacket to make a pillow for the poor mall Santa Claus when she found him locked in the supply closet, stripped of his costume and shivering in his underpants.

They’d had sleigh bells printed on them.

“Thank you,” Santa coughed when she set it under his head, and it had felt really good to do something useful like that. Holly had been unable to escape the nagging feeling that for most of the night, ever since the vaguely European-accented men in dark clothing had descended on the shopping mall just after she, her dad and a motley collection of colorful characters were all caught inside together at closing time, she had not been of much actual use at all. She _tried_ to be, sure, but she always seemed to screw it up in the most exasperating way so that she ended up cornered by an armed man in black leather or hanging from a piece of precariously-swaying Christmas decor and screaming for Dad to come rescue her.

Which, being Dad, he always did.

He was honestly kind of awesome, her father. She had always known it on some level, but seeing him in action since they got stuck here for this thing . . . well. There was almost nothing, it seemed, her father did not know how to repurpose for assault purposes. He had crafted three different impromptu weapons (though no working phone). Then he would invariably tuck her behind some concealing surface or other, say “stay here,” and grimly run off to do something important while she waited, and waited, and . . . honestly she really _meant_ to wait, but something always seemed to draw her out.

Life was funny like that.

Actually, a whole lot about this situation was funny. Not funny ha-ha, but funny like . . . how did Dad know how to do all that shit anyway? He was always so cagey about his job even on a good day, and now this guy who showed up leading the men with guns and grim deathbed one-liners seemed to know all about him, even calling out mocking challenges over the speaker system and shouting blistering threats into two-way radios, and he was pissed about Dad fucking everything up.

(her father said _fuck_ an awful lot, too, Holly had discovered tonight. That was almost as cool as him knowing how to make a flamethrower out of hairspray and a bunch of Permaflame Christmas candles he’d bound together with colorful wrapping tape. He even didn’t scold _her_ for saying fuck when he had been trying to get her to safety for the third time and they’d been cornered by that tall pair of looming, lantern-jawed twins by the fire escape. Holly had liked the way the word felt in her mouth)

But now Dad was having some kind of showdown on the roof of the mall and everybody was up there, gathered dramatically near the beautiful, many-paned skylight that normally streamed daylight down into the shopping center but now, under the dark of December’s cold stars, seemed jagged and foreboding.

No way _that_ could go wrong, right?

Almost as if sensing the threat posed by his daughter’s mortality, if not his own, Dad had taken steps to conceal her. En route to the final reckoning he brought Holly to Santa’s village. It was the same place she had always loved as a little girl, the bright and merry North Pole setup where she and Dad had paused earlier tonight, before all this began. He had smiled at the sight of a father setting his little girl on Santa’s lap and reminisced fondly about those days when Holly, too, had been that small. That was when Holly had carelessly told him she was too old for that now; she was not a little girl anymore.

Dad’s face had closed over at hearing her say so, but by taking her back there to protect her he clearly meant to signal that to him she still was. Faced with the prospect of being hidden away like that, the one precious thing he had left to lose, Holly’s shell of maturity finally shattered and she had started to cry.

“Take me with you,” she’d begged, “please.” But Dad had held her at arm’s length and looked into her face and said he couldn’t do it.

“If anything ever happened to you . . .”

He failed to finish the sentence. Instead, he pulled her close and held her so tight she could barely breathe; certainly tight enough to prevent her from pointing out that actually, by almost anybody’s standards, a whole hell of a lot already had.

Then Dad gently kissed her forehead and handed her a semi-automatic rifle longer than her torso—he had taken it from the body of the small, sneering man who did terrible things with hot wires—and left her snuggled down against it in the sleigh parked prominently in the center of Santa’s workshop. He’d begged her to stay there, begged her to be safe for his sake if not her own, and she promised she would. She really, truly, entirely _meant_ to stay there, too. Honest.

Except she had spotted the fluffy white kitten that had escaped the pet store earlier. It was clinging to the sleigh-bell-embroidered drapery, mewling its distress, and she knew if it fell that would be the end of it. The poor thing had already been through enough trauma tonight. So Holly studied the setup very carefully and devised a way to reach the kitten. It had felt incredibly clever and bound to succeed, but somehow during the process of execution her foot got caught in some jingle bells and she’d spent a hellish minute swinging by her ankle over the skating rink on the ground floor far, far below before she managed to work up enough pendular momentum to grab hold of the nearest balcony and pull herself to safety.

The kitten clambered over her shoulder to reach terra firma and promptly scampered away, heedless of the peril it had caused her. She supposed it would turn up again in its own good time; it seemed to have a habit of doing that. But now she was on the wrong floor and she had to get back to Santa’s village to wait where her Dad had told her to.

She started for the stairs, but just in time remembered the grim fate of the second twin. He had leered at her and said something in a language she conveniently did not speak, but in tones that were, regrettably, universal. Her face had flamed with embarrassment at what she knew he must have said and she’d folded her arms to cover the part of her stomach her sweater left bare. Then all at once Dad had come crashing into the man, knocking him over the railing, and had held her warm and close so she didn’t have to see him fall.

But Holly was seventeen, not stupid. She knew he’d landed on the stairs.

So, not wanting to see one more man bleeding sluggishly from the ears, staring up at the ceiling water valves with glassy, unseeing eyes, she had chosen the elevator instead.

Waiting for it was weirdly soothing. Like something normal she could still do even as her world collapsed around her, the mall eerily deserted after dark, small fires burning in the various departments where her dad had tackled the men who were trying to kill him, all so he couldn’t stop them from doing . . . what?

Holly, with a jolt, realized she didn’t even know. She must have missed that part. Maybe she hadn’t been there for it. Whatever they wanted, though, she knew they wouldn’t get it. Dad would make sure of that. Maybe he already even had.

She turned her gaze over her shoulder to stare contemplatively to the skylight, set in the ceiling like a great, dark jewel; a window into some part of her dad’s world she was unable to enter. He’d be up there even now, she supposed, sorting it out, and . . .

She frowned.

It was so funny. It almost looked like a fire had already started. But that couldn’t be; the fires only started in an area after Dad was done. She’d definitely noticed that much by now. Walking _through_ a fire sounded like something for somebody else to do. Very uncomfortable, certainly, and—

But she did not get to finish the thought. The elevator door dinged in the middle of it, and she turned just in time to see them glide near-silently open to reveal . . . chaos. Or at least, the aftermath of chaos. Holly knew the look of _aftermath_ pretty well by now.

Broken, flickering lights. Shadows cast that should not have been there. Bullet holes in the walls, and . . . Holly stumbled back. She tried to bring the gun up. But the man was too fast for her.

He had his hands on the rifle and around Holly’s neck, and she didn’t have time to wonder how he could be so fast, how to escape, because by the time the thought landed he had already pulled the gun from her and tossed it away to land with a useless clatter on the tiles of the mall floor.

“Well hello there, sweetheart.” His voice was smooth and deep. It rolled over her like ice and honey, and it made her want to cry. “I was hoping to run into you.”

Then he dragged her into the shadows of the elevator and the last thing Holly saw clearly before the doors slid shut was his awful, gleaming grin.

* * *

“I’ve been watching you.” The man’s tone was almost conversational, despite how creepy the information he relayed actually was. “Did you know that? There are cameras everywhere. I’ve had a front row seat to everything you did tonight.” He finished taping her wrists and shoved her over, onto her belly, across the edge of the sleigh.

“Your father should never have involved you in this.”

Her captor sounded almost _disapproving_. As if he had any place to lecture her dad on his parenting! Holly squirmed, miserable, indignant, longing to defend her dad but also terrified of what fresh attention talking might bring.

“I mean, of course I _am_ glad that he did. But I’m glad for my own sake. Not yours. For you . . . ah. Well, for you, I am afraid, this will not be pleasant.” A delicate pause. Then, “Do you know what I’m going to do to you, sweetheart?”

He was standing behind her, which meant she couldn’t actually see him, but that was fine because Holly didn’t want to. Not his face, with his awful smile that spread curly and crooked across his face, or the cold blue eyes that cut through her like ice. Not the way he was removing his gloves, the gloves he had worn every time she caught a glimpse of him after he had arrived, as if the hands he bared to her now were some kind of signal that his evening was at an end, business was done, and he was ready to play.

 _Definitely_ not the way he was unabashedly tenting the front of his trousers with anticipation of pleasures to come.

Holly did not want to see that.

Instead she studied her own wrists, bound together in front of her with the same Christmas-tree-print wrapping tape Dad had snagged from the charity giftwrap station to assemble his flamethrower. She looked at the fluffy cotton batting snow that lay beneath the sleigh Dad had brought her to and left her in to keep her safe; the same sleigh where the man who hated him had brought her now.

 _Not_ to keep her safe.

Holly felt his hand running gently up her backside. She hid her face in her arms.

“Mmm,” he sighed, fingertips creeping up under the hem of her soft, cream-colored sweater. “You’re remarkably soft, sweet thing.”

Holly’s stomach churned.

“You feel untouched.” The hand was roaming, stroking. “Unbroken. Are you?” He plucked thoughtfully at the back clasp of her bra before slipping his hand around to cup and squeeze one breast through the lace and boning of the undergarment. Holly’s eyes filled with tears, as much at the intimacy of the violation as the pain. She’d bought this bra with Mom, something grown up and a little fun but something they definitely, she and Mom had agreed, could not show her father.

“He wouldn’t understand,” Mom sighed, fixing Holly’s hair, pushing it behind her shoulders and back from her face, smiling at her with equal parts wistful nostalgia and very present-day pride. “You’re growing up so fast, but he still sees you as his little girl.”

Holly thought if Dad could see what this man was doing to her now, he might have to revise his understanding on that point. And then she’d have to effect her own reversal and apologize for telling him she was an adult now, because this was some _seriously_ grown up shit, and she was _not_ on board.

“W-where’s my father?” she whispered.

The hand squeezing her breast briefly fell still.

“Thinking about your dad while I’m touching you, sweetheart? Well. That’s . . . kinky.” He tweaked her nipple through the lace, and she squirmed. “But I suppose I shouldn’t judge. Whatever you need to get through this.”

“What did you _do_ to him?” she demanded, burning anger warring with the cold knot of fear that bound up her stomach. “Is he okay? Did you—is he—” But she could not bring herself to say it. Any version of it. The man touching her seemed to understand, though, and pulled her around to face him.

He was taller than her. Not quite as tall as Dad, but she hadn’t expected him to be; it seemed like almost nobody was taller than Dad. This man scared her even without the extra height, though. He had a sinister, subtle accent of unnameable origin. It spoke to breeding and education and probable intelligence, unlike the harsh, grating and over-exaggerated tones of the men who worked for him (or had done, before her father started saving this guy a bundle on severance packages). He had smooth, cold hands and they were cupping her face now, forcing her chin up to make her look at him.

To see his smile.

“I left him under some rubble that fell when he took a bullet for the pregnant store clerk. One of my men had brought her up to the roof, and your father became remarkably preoccupied trying to rescue her, so we took the opportunity to shoot him. This coincided with an explosion, so there was a very dusty mess. That’s when I left.”

He openly enjoyed her look of fear for a moment before continuing the confession.

“It was a flesh wound only, I’m afraid; upper arm. Hardly grazed him. No, your infuriating father was alive when last I saw him, just briefly incapacitated. He may even be alive right now. Indeed, I very much hope he is.” He pressed his lips to her forehead in a terrible mockery of the very way her father had recently kissed her when he said good bye. “I want him to see what meddling in my affairs tonight has cost his pretty little girl.”

She was too distracted by her relief at his first piece of news to even struggle when he scooped her up like a little Christmas parcel and lifted her into the sleigh. Then he sprang in beside her and knelt on the soft red plush of the velvet rug, running his hands down the curves showcased by her jeans as though he were seeking the likeliest point of entry.

“Gorgeous legs,” he proclaimed, and Holly writhed, miserable in the face of the compliment. Just because it was true, didn’t mean she wanted him to say it. He smiled, as if he understood what him openly appreciating a part of her body she’d previously been proud of had done to her.

He smiled like he’d done it for exactly that reason.

“There’s no part of you I won’t have touched by the time we’re done tonight.” His hands were under her sweater again. He smiled down into her face as he stroked the taut, smooth skin of her tummy. “No part of you left for him to look at without imagining what you felt with my hands on you; with me on top of you . . .” his fingers popped the top button on her jeans. “Inside you.”

Holly sobbed into her bound wrists. The man reaching down the front of her jeans, fingers forcing past the waistband of her panties, chuckled in her ear.

“You can cry if you want, sweetheart. He’s not going to hear you. But I will.” His fingers stroked down, parting her lips, making her weep and writhe. “I’m going to enjoy it.” He probed a little deeper before confiding, “I’ll be imagining the look on his face when you do.”

Her fury got the better of her in that moment, and she flung his words back at him, bitter with rage.

“You’re planning to think about my _father_ while you fuck me? Kinky isn’t even the _word_ for that.”

His face altered in an instant, and he struck. Cracked his bare palm hard across her cunt, making her shriek. Then he slapped her face as well, rage breaking through the cold, friendly detachment of his façade just long enough for her to see him: _really_ see him. See the anger and the murderous intent and the readiness to make her suffer, to make her hurt in any way he could, purely in order to get at her father; to hurt _him_.

“That smartass mouth of yours would look better with a cock inside it,” he decided. “If I thought I could trust you not to bite, you’d be choking on mine right now. As it is . . . we’ll do this the old fashioned way.”

Then he nodded above them at a central snowflake suspended over Santa’s village.

“He’ll get to watch, you know. Once he finds the tapes. After this is all over, when I’m well away from here and they’re sifting through the evidence, trying to find out what went wrong, they’ll have the security footage. Of you, of me . . . of me inside you . . . who knows?” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and smiled when she flinched away. “We might even rate a guest appearance in some law enforcement training video somewhere. Won’t that be fun?”

He peeled her jeans down and her panties went with them.

“Let’s make you a star.”

The threat of such exposure, on such a scale, froze Holly’s tears in her head. Froze the rest of her, too. She stared up at the gleaming blue-white spires of the snowflake and the tiny black bauble it obscured. She imagined the footage of her assault being viewed by bored cops sipping cold coffee, cracking bad jokes about how long the guy on top of her would last, maybe even getting a little hard because . . . because people were really awful, sometimes. Really, really awful.

She hiccuped quietly as he forced her thighs apart.

“Would love to take my time with you,” he admitted, studying her with detached, almost clinical enjoyment. He probed between her legs and she yelped at the suddenness of it. The stabbing invasion did not let up until she screamed. The man took his hand away, inspecting her with obvious surprise. “That actually hurt you? That’s just my finger, honey. How you planning to handle the rest of me, if you can’t even take that?”

Belatedly, comprehension dawned.

“Jesus. You’ve really never . . ?”

She shook her head, because what would the point of lying be? He shook his head too, as if awed in spite of himself.

“Christ. A virgin. Well isn’t that something? Even _appropriate_ for this time of year, when you think about it.” He looked around thoughtfully, considering the snowscape. “You know what? I think, in the spirit of the season. . . oh, here we go.” He found one of the blue icicle lights dangling from the side of the sleigh. Independently hung on little wire hooks, they were powered by a battery within. The one he held was about the size of a smallish flashlight, long and thin, tapered at the tip.

“Let’s open you up a little first. Make it easier for you to take the real thing. Merry Christmas, kid.”

Holly shrieked and tried to roll away, but her jeans were only halfway down her legs and she had no leverage at all. He restrained her easily with one hand, forcing her legs apart and fitting the tip of the flickering plastic icicle at her entrance.

“Nice deep breath now,” he advised, and slid it in.

She cried out as he pushed it in, pulled it back, then in again. She did not cry, not _really_ , but she did just about everything else. Whimpered and shrieked and squeezed her watering eyes tight shut as he fucked her with the plastic object, so much wider than his finger, and longer too. It probed the tenderest part of her insides with remorseless detachment so that she had to feel every part of her that had never been felt before.

“You gonna come for me?” he wondered, sincerely interested as he watched. “You’re taking it real nice, sweetheart. Got over half of it up inside you, there. Room for more. Think you could come for me, if I made you?”

She shook her head frantically. “No, please—” but he didn’t listen.

His bare fingers settled with devastating practice on the little bump near the mouth of her cunt. He worked it calm and steady while the other hand worked the icicle in turn.

“You’re going to come for me,” he predicted. “Cute little virgin like you? I know you’ve got some nasty, freaky urges stored up inside. Daddy wouldn’t let you date any boys with the balls to see it through, would he? Maybe never let you date at all.”

The icicle thrust further; deeper.

“Saved you all for me.”

Something . . . oh God, no. Holly shook her head frantically, fighting it back, fighting it off, but it was no use. He fucked the icicle into her as her resolve broke in a wash of cruel pleasure, orgasm chasing the intrusion, her poor violated cunt deciding to make the best of it all and clench pathetically at the invasion of the thing she didn’t even want inside her.

He laughed, triumphant, and Holly cringed away. But he was on her already, tossing the icicle aside, admiring the feel of the slick he’d drawn from her, fingers smearing it around her entrance, dragging the head of his cock up and down, wetting it, getting ready . . .

And then he pushed in.

And there was really no getting ready for that.

Holly went rigid beneath him, panting. She didn’t even have breath to scream, because he was crushing her even as he filled her. Pressing down from above while he forced her open, making himself felt all around, deep within, until the whole world shrank to this place and this moment, and the world around her was nothing but _him_.

She lifted her gaze to the ceiling, hoping to forget, to drift away, to maybe just . . . go somewhere else in her mind for a while. But then she saw the security camera again, and suddenly all she could think of was what seeing this would do her dad.

In its own way, the thought _was_ a kind of escape. But it was like going from a cold house out into the blizzard that raged beyond the walls. The idea that this was something her father would see, that even in the course of his job—really what the _fuck_ was his job, anyway? _Hours_ of this shit, and she still didn’t know—he would be forced to see her raped . . .

She shut her eyes and strangled her own sob.

The man above her, the man inside her, saw and laughed.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he crooned. “Look at you, trying to pretend you don’t enjoy this. Honey. Honey, here, look at me,” he slapped her face lightly, scoldingly. “Look at me.”

When she still wouldn’t open her eyes, he snapped his hips forward and the stab of his cock in her cunt shot her eyes wide open with the shriek that followed. He smiled cruelly.

“Now you know better,” he decided. “Look at me, kid.”

She did, dully. Obediently. Blank.

“You don’t have to pretend like you don’t enjoy this, sweetheart. I saw you come. Hell, I can feel how wet you are.”

 _I’m not_ , Holly tried to say, but the lie wouldn’t come. Because she was. She really was. He was deep inside her, forcing her open, and she was soaking his cock like she wanted this. Like she’d asked for it. Hearing him say so, all she could hope was that the security footage did not come with sound.

“You know you’re loving this,” he said, like it was the most reasonable and ordinary thing in the world. “And that’s okay. A girl should enjoy this. Sluts get fucked like sluts. Only natural they should be into it.”

Now this _was_ unfair. Holly was actually deeply indignant at how unfair it really was. Just because he was making her wet didn’t mean she _enjoyed_ it. He knew that, he had to know that, but he was smiling at her like he didn’t. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right . . .

“Gonna make you come again,” he predicted. “Like a fucking whore. Just you wait and see.”

She definitely did not want that. But she didn’t see how she could stop it, either, unless . . .

She cast around desperately in her mind, trying to remember where everybody was.

_He was picking up speed, thrusting faster now. His hand was on her clit, thumbing it back to a low and dangerous hum._

Mall Santa was in the closet. He was not well. Hit on the head trying to protect the kids whose mother had put them out the little bathroom window, with Holly’s help. They were the reason the SWAT team surrounded the building now.

_Grunting in her ear, calling her his little Christmas present. Telling her how her cunt felt so good around his cock._

Pregnant sales clerk was somewhere on the roof, it sounded like, and maybe her dad was there too. No help from that quarter; the sales clerk was _extremely_ pregnant.

_Praising her sweetness, her wetness, calling her a slut. Greedy slutty virgin cunt; did her daddy know?_

Hapless Security Guard had been left binding up the wound on Competent Security Guard’s leg, with the help of Wry Retired Nurse who had shared some words of gentle wisdom with Holly when she fretted aloud that her dad might not make it, and confessed how scared she was.

_Her dad was going to know she’d given it up to him. That everything he’d done tonight all told, it was nothing in the end, because when push came to shove, he couldn’t even keep her safe._

There had been a few others, Holly thought, but their faces escaped her now. So few of them had even had names. The two teenage boys who had tried to give her a hard time in the foot court before her Dad showed up. That was before the fighting started; one of them had wet his pants, he’d been so scared, but Holly had tried to be kind.

Holly _always_ tried to be kind.

_Hand on her clit meant business, now. The wave was rising, cresting, about to break—_

Holly was so _very done_ with being kind.

She snapped her head forward and cracked him across the bridge of the nose, and she came while she did it. So, half a win, she thought, as her cunt clutched and convulsed and the blood spurted from his nose, speckling her cheeks, but god _damn_ did that feel good.

In every conceivable way.

She was writhing still, mid-orgasm, as he hauled back his hand and cracked her across the face.

“You little _bitch_!” he snarled, and she wore the name with a grim kind of pride. Because fuck him, was why.

The hand he’d used to slap her was smeared with his own blood, which meant her face was smeared with it, too. She struggled up into a sitting position, hands bound, to watch him stagger back and stare at her with murder in his face.

“When I’m done with you,” he predicted, “your daddy will be lucky to have two teeth and a lock of your hair left to bury.”

He meant it. She didn’t doubt he did. But Holly was staring at him like a woman transformed. And, she realized, as her eyes slid up to rest on the garland-trimmed clock that towered above, she literally was.

It was after midnight.

Christmas Day.

Well. How about that?

Then his hand closed around her arm and he dragged her out of the sleigh, and suddenly she had bigger problems to focus on than that.

* * *

“Cavalry’s here,” he reported, glancing outside. Holly, her mouth now taped along with her wrists, listened silently and made no attempt at a response.

He was wearing Santa’s costume, while she wore nothing at all. He’d stripped every stitch of clothing from her the moment they reached the store room and made her watch while he changed, too.

He was dressed as Santa Claus.

“Took it off the mall guy. Thought it might come in handy. They’ll think I was a hostage,” he explained. “They’re going to let me just walk past them, and I’ll be gone. I wish you could see it, sweetheart, but you’re definitely going to be dead by then.”

Holly nodded her understanding, if not her acceptance. Somehow, she did not think she would be. But better not let him know that. Better let him think that this was something her father couldn’t solve, couldn’t work his way through, couldn’t create some makeshift weapon to use to get the upper hand yet again . . . as long as he didn’t know.

Her father could never know.

That was the thing that Holly had come to accept, waiting here like this. Her father could never know what this man had done, which meant she could never tell. Could never tell anyone. Not him, not her mom, not even her friends. Just in case. Because then it might get back to him, and her dad could never know. If she wanted her dad to keep being himself, she had to keep on being who she was. Or at least, who he thought she was. Because once her dad knew what this man had done . . . everything would change. For real. And Holly, not even fully comprehending what _for real_ meant, nevertheless knew she didn’t want it.

A world where her father could get shot saving a salesclerk and walk away with only a flesh wound was a world worth hanging on to, and if keeping silent forever about what happened to her when he wasn’t around to stop it was the price she had to pay, she’d . . . well, she’d settle up.

But for now she watched, naked, while the man in the Santa suit turned to watch the events outside. It was all coming to a kind of close, now. They both could feel it. More men were down—his men. Not her dad. Never her dad. Holly would see to that—and the SWAT team were moving in.

He pulled her over to the window to watch, and Holly took in the sight. The man who appeared to be in charge of the team now was young. He had the look of a rookie maverick who had seized control from a stuffy older person who lacked the creativity to respond appropriately to the situation. Holly, seeing the youth and vitality and general good looks of the man radiating off him, knew he’d do well.

He was _supposed_ to do well, so he would.

And Dad . . . Holly looked around. Dad would be here soon. But she was naked. There was something off about that. So she probably wouldn’t be with him when Dad found the store room, unless . . . oh, of course. He wouldn’t be coming here, he’d be out there, in front of the guns, when he and his rival came face to face for the final time. Which meant that Holly . . .

She stepped back.

Barefoot.

Quiet.

Barely made a sound.

Took another step back, naked and shivering and bound.

She’d have to find her clothes, if she wanted to show up out there at the right time. Couldn’t let Dad see her naked, she was absolutely certain about that. Now if she could just make it to the door . . .

She _almost_ did. But he turned just in time and rage distorted his features. Holly squeaked behind the Christmas tape on her mouth, fumbled at the door handle, which was a single heavy, metal bar, and tumbled out into the main concourse. She took maybe half a dozen steps before he caught her, but they were good ones. They took her right to the base of a Christmas tree. Not the big one in the foyer, but one of the smaller ones placed at irregular intervals along the balcony supports.

“Fucking bitch,” he captor snarled, “think you’re getting away that easy—”

Holly lifted her gaze to the tree that loomed behind his head. Her attacker had no way of knowing it because of the tape he’d put over her mouth, but she smiled.

“—going to make such a fucking mess of you—”

The kitten dropped. No, the kitten _leaped_. Launched itself from the tree like a fluffy missile, needle claws extended, tiny teeth dagger-bared, to land on the back of his neck.

Holly rolled free as he screamed. Hands bound, mouth taped, she pried the scratching, spitting kitten off his bleeding neck and vaulted right over the balcony railing, into the snow drift below.

* * *

The man didn’t chase her. Holly had known he would not, just like she knew where he was going now, just like she knew she had to get her clothes on, just like she knew the kitten was now here to stay. It all seemed to be written into the formula of her life, and for the first time she could see it clearly. Understood there were things she had to do, or everything would end badly, but within the things she had to do there were still choices left to make if she had to nerve to make them.

After she put her clothes back on, Holly settled the kitten on her shoulder and started for the security room, determined to make an end to that footage once and for all.

“Going to have to think of a name for you,” she told the kitten, bright and chipper, like she wasn’t leaking semen into her panties, like she wasn’t going to have to go to some clinic that wouldn’t push back when she asked them to give her a morning after pill and check her for anything else he might have left her with.

Like this was one of the parts of her life that somebody watched, and not the private parts that happened in between.

“Won’t be long now,” she told the kitten.

Told herself.

Holly found the gun her dad had given her where it had fallen when the man attacked her, and she took it as a sign. This was the gun she had to use, if she wanted to use a gun at all. She hung it on her free shoulder and started for the door that was clearly, boldly labelled SECURITY, set in the wall like it was waiting for her to find, and calmly stepped inside. She went right to the security deck set in the facing wall, pulled out the VHS tape and smashed it on the concrete. Ground it into little plastic bits under the heel of her boot, shredded the plastic reel within, and swooped down just in time to stop the kitten from playing with the ribbons that remained. Then she stepped back outside, and considered the time.

Would her dad have found his way into the parking lot yet? It seemed like the time for him to do so was very close. But Holly was nowhere near the main door, which meant . . .

She took the stairs.

The leering twin’s body was lying brokenly on them, as she had expected it would be, but it did not frighten her like it used to. She stepped over the corpse, calmly dismissing the man as unimportant, a secondary complication in the main events of her life, and shifted the gun that she held. It was so heavy, and she wasn’t used to holding it, but it didn’t make her afraid the way it used to. In fact, Holly thought, if she was able to pull this off, she would probably never feel afraid again.

Just sad.

So unspeakably, unbearably, weighted-down sad.

But that was the price she’d already agreed on with herself, and she thought she might as well get used to paying it now.

She knelt by the window on the landing, and discovered, without surprise, that the window opened into some cedar bushes bordering the parking lot. The very parking lot where the SWAT team was gathered, where her father was now running from one fleeing hostage to the other, grabbing them, shaking them like a man possessed, asking them desperately if they knew what had happened to _her_. Asking if they had seen his daughter.

Holly dug fiercely at some of the tears she still refused to shed.

Dad would never know what had happened to her, if she had anything to say about it. But first things first. She opened the window and crawled through it, landing in a crouch in the bushes. The kitten followed, just as quick and prompt as if it had been trained to. She rubbed its fluffy neck absently, settled it back on her shoulder and told it to stay put.

“Mew,” agreed the kitten. Just as goddamn adorable as all that.

Holly advanced to the edge of the parking lot, keeping herself shrouded in the shadows of evergreen shrubs, trees and bushes. They were snow dusted, silent, eerily still. They smelled like Christmas, and she breathed them in until the cold lit her cheeks with roses. She ignored the way snowflakes dusted her dark hair and lashes, because they weren’t important now, but she had some vague notion that anybody looking at her now would think she looked like Christmas.

Like some lethal avenging treetop angel.

She enjoyed the thought of that.

Her dad spotted Santa. He turned to stare at the fleeing red form, and she couldn’t see Dad’s face because his back was to her but she could see in the set of his shoulders that he knew something was wrong.

“Hey,” he called, starting after the figure. “Hey, somebody—”

Santa broke into a run.

“Stop that man!” Dad’s voice rang out with such authority that six cops, all shockingly fit and good looking, turned in lethal unison to obey. But Santa eluded them, comically capable in flight, and somehow his path of escape brought him back around to stand in front of Dad.

Because of _course_ it did.

“You,” Dad growled. His hands were empty; still no gun. Holly supposed he had some kind of eleventh hour rescue device tucked in his pocket, or else—oh, no of course. The pregnant salesclerk. Holly could see her being helped onto a metal stretcher very nearby. She would probably push it into Santa’s middle at exactly the right time, saving the day.

Or she _would_ have. Except Santa wanted to talk, and Holly knew exactly what he wanted to talk about.

“What,” he taunted her dad, “you have a private audience with old St. Nick and you’re not going to tell him what you want for Christmas?”

“I’ll settle for putting you away for good. I guess, when you think about it, you could say all I want for Christmas . . . is you.” Dad paused, then added, “Behind bars.”

Holly wondered if her father knew exactly how bizarrely homoerotic every one of his exchanges with her assailant had sounded. Then she decided even if he did, he probably wouldn’t care.

She slid the gun strap off her shoulder, and took aim.

“No?” Santa asked, savoring the moment. “You really can’t think of _anything_ else you want from me more than that?” He searched her dad’s face, so gloating, so sure. “Not even your little girl?”

Holly saw her father’s posture change. His shoulder set got hard and square, and he fisted his hands like he regretted, suddenly, not holding a gun. His voice dropped to a growl.

“What are you talking about?”

“Why, we’ve met. Your daughter and I. Didn’t you know?”

“Where is she?” Dad demanded. Santa laughed and Dad took a step forward, quick and deadly. “ _Where is she?_ ”

“Nearby. Nothing to worry about on that front; I don’t think she would go too far without you. Daddy’s little girl, and all that. When you do find her, though, I should warn you to prepare for a shock.” He paused, smiling placidly above the drooping fake Santa beard that sat askew against his chin. “You won’t _really_ be able to call her your little girl, you know. Not anymore.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dad thundered.

Santa laughed. A belly laugh, deep and cruel.

“Know something? I’ll tell you gladly. Yes, let me tell you _exactly_ what I did with your precious little—”

Holly fired.

She’d say later that he reached for a gun. Make up some excuse. It would fit. It would feel fair and good and right. Nobody would question it. But nothing all the rest of her life would never feel as good as she felt right now, standing clear of the bushes in the falling snow so that her father could turn, and see her, and she could watch his face melt into such simple, uncomplicated relief.

Because he still didn’t know.

And as long as Holly could live with herself, with the secret she carried, she knew he never would.

She ran to him, was caught up in a crushing grip and held by him. She gasped for breath at the strength of his hug.

“Dad!” she yelped. “You’re gonna crush my kitten!”

“Oh, so we have a kitten now, do we?” he laughed, so easy, confident, and carefree. So uncomplicatedly _Dad_.

“She’s cute, right?” she heard herself say, light and easy, merry and bright, fake as drifts of plastic snow. “I think I’ll call her Bell.” She paused, eyes sparkling. “Jingle Bell.”

“Perfect,” Dad said, and tickled Jingle Bell behind her fluffy ears. “But who’s gonna tell your Mom?”

“1-2-3-not-me!” Holly quipped, and tapped her nose. _Jesus, her cunt hurt._

Dad rolled his eyes, scruffled her hair and let Jingle Bell spring to his shoulder. Because you already just knew they were going to be best friends.

Holly tried to smile at the sight, but it must have looked wrong somehow because Dad’s brow furrowed in sudden concern. He caught her face gently in his hands, just like the fake Santa had done before he forced her onto her back and forced his cock inside her—

“—hurt you, did he?”

The question cut through the memory like a dull knife. Holly blinked, smiled a little too brightly, and shook her head.

“No,” she said. “He didn’t hurt me. As if! Come on, Dad. You’d never let that happen.”

“Of course I wouldn’t.” He pulled her close. “I could never live with myself, if anything happened to you.”

Holly closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe. Nice and regular. In and out.

_It hurt . . ._

“I know, Dad.” Her voice broke. “I know.”


End file.
